


The First Branch Point

by EBBTides



Category: Gilmore Girls
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Fix-It, Season 3, What if Rory actually talked to Jess before leaving for DC?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-08
Updated: 2019-10-10
Packaged: 2020-11-27 15:28:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 4,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20950667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EBBTides/pseuds/EBBTides
Summary: When she closes her eyes, she doesn’t see Dean. She doesn’t imagine him tapping at her window, or ghosting through the familiar shadows of her room. It’s not his weight pressing her down, or his hand skimming her side. She hasn’t been able to bear Dean’s touch since the wedding.She takes a breath, and a chance, and lets the pebble fly.





	1. Chapter 1

It’s been three days since she kissed him, three days since she told him not to say a word, three days since her mom told her that the timing with Christopher just wasn’t right, and maybe wouldn’t ever be.

In three days more, she’ll be in Washington.

At first, going seemed like the only decision she could make, the only thing that would stop her from making other, more hurtful choices. But the closer she gets to leaving, the worse she feels. The sense of dread roils her stomach, makes it hard to get enough air.

Because maybe that open, hopeful look — the one that said he wanted to stay—won’t be here when she gets back. And maybe, probably, there’s no way to get out of this without hurting someone.

(_Does she really want it to be him?_)

When she closes her eyes, she doesn’t see Dean. She doesn’t imagine him tapping at her window, or ghosting through the familiar shadows of her room. It’s not his weight pressing her down, or his hand skimming her side. She hasn’t been able to bear Dean’s touch since the wedding.

But, then, she hasn’t gotten up the courage to go to Luke’s either.

Which is probably why she’s there now, in the middle of the night, dressed in nothing but pajamas, since the part of her brain that would have helped her get dressed was busy telling her not to go in the first place. There aren’t any lights on upstairs, and everything’s quiet.

She knows that if she tosses the pebble in her hand, it’ll probably wake him. He told her, once, that he sleeps lightly here, especially without music blaring in his ears, blocking out the silence. That he’s awake long stretches of the night anyway. Whereas everyone knows that Luke’ll sleep through anything.

She takes a breath, and a chance, and lets the pebble fly.


	2. Chapter 2

By the time he sidles through the door, she’s moved to the gazebo and is sitting nervously, hands tapping and legs bouncing, a ball of the energy she’d rather release some other way.

“Hi,” he says.

He’s moving toward her, and smirking like he always knew she’d come. But she’s gotten good at reading him by now, and she can tell he’s hesitant. Afraid of spooking her. Probably wondering if she’s about to bolt.

“Hi,” she answers, her voice a little breathier than it should be if she’s trying to play it cool.

He smiles, and sits beside her. Close enough that she can hear his breath and feel his heat. Jiggling her leg would jiggle him, so she stills.

“I kissed you,” she blurts into the silence.

“I kissed you back.”

A few more beats, and then he’s the one talking. “It’s OK, you know. You were surprised to see me there, maybe just the tiniest bit glad to have me back. No _mea culpas_ required.”

She snorts. “It didn’t mean nothing, Jess.” A dark thought occurs to her. “Unless you’re saying it means nothing?”

His gaze burns into hers. “I’m saying you’re with Dean, and I know that. And the panicked expression on your face, plus three days of pretty expert avoidance behavior—that doesn’t exactly scream _I want this_.”

He goes on, softer now, maybe softer than she’s ever heard him. “I don’t want to pressure you.”

And she must look pretty skeptical because he raises his hands and says, “OK, so maybe you just caught me in an off moment. For now, though, that’s what I got.”

He’s giving her an out—a gracious one, even—and she’d be grateful, except she can feel this thing pulsing between them like it has a life of its own, and all she can think of is how much she wants him to lean over and kiss her one more time.

“I need to break up with Dean.”

“Well, no argument there.”

“No, seriously,” she says, nudging his shoulder. “It’s just — he hasn’t done anything to me, you know? And I hate hurting people. But I am anyway because I’m so distant, and I can barely stand to have him touch me anymore, and it’s you I — ”

She breaks off, but he’s looking straight at her, his hand reaching up to lift her chin, brush the hair from her face. And she knows she’s gone too far to back out now, even if he doesn’t want this in the same way she does.

“It’s you I think about, Jess.”

“I think about you too. I can’t seem to stop.”

She’s not sure how they got so close, how his hand got tangled in her hair, or her nose started skimming the shell of his ear, the hollow of his cheek. But she knows she can barely breathe, and that she doesn’t want any of it to stop, especially once his lips find hers and drown everything else out.

He breaks away first, resting his forehead on hers and breathing like he’s trying to steady himself.

“I think we’d better go back in,” he sighs. “You’re not broken up with Dean yet.”

“OK,” she murmurs, pressing her lips to the corner of his.

He walks her home, and neither of them says anything about the way his hand anchors hers.


	3. Chapter 3

She tells Dean the truth. Unprecedented, right? She’s as kind as possible, softens it as much as she can, but she’s turning over a new leaf, and there comes a point when you have to be brave enough to want what you want without denying it.

(Or that’s what she tells herself, anyway.)

Dean’s crushed, and angry, and it’s awful. And Babette must have overheard somehow, because the news spreads through the town like wildfire, almost as soon as Dean leaves the house.

_At least it’s done, _she figures. And wonders how soon it’ll be until he hears, too.

***

She almost goes to find him again. But her mom comes home, hands full of essentials for the DC trip (even though Lorelai’s at a loose end too, and the last thing she wants is to have the house to herself for six whole weeks)—and all of a sudden, it just feels wrong not to tell her everything. So they order Indian—because clearly Rory’s having a moment, and needs the fiery comfort of chicken vindaloo — and she talks about Dean, and how he feels all wrong to her now, like a lead weight pulling her down, and even more about Jess, and how he’s this strange home she never knew to miss. She even shows Lorelai _Howl—_not all of it, not the parts she thinks were meant just for her, but enough to let her mom glimpse the way their minds fit together.

Lorelai's sad about Dean—and obviously nervous-slash-halfway-to-scared about Jess—but Rory came to her with all of it, and tried to make her understand, and that matters. She strokes Rory’s hair as they watch _A Star Is Born _on repeat.

Dean, her mom explains, is the one who got away—from the perspective of the now-despondent water-cooler.

(_And maybe this won’t wreck them, after all_.)


	4. Chapter 4

Later that night, he taps on her window. She’s been hovering on the edge of sleep, and almost tricks herself into believing that she’s slipped into a dream—but then there’s another tap, and another. She pushes the window open and steps back to let him climb through.

He half-stumbles, getting inside — and they stand there awkwardly for what feels like forever. Her hands cross over her chest, warding off an imaginary chill, and she wonders about the state of her hair.

“Your mom asleep?” he asks, softly, tilting his head toward the stairs.

“Would take at least 18 alarm clocks to wake her now,” she quips. But she pitches her voice low, just in case, and they draw closer together until the silence wraps itself around them. Her arms are by her sides now, and his fingers circle her wrists.

“You broke up with Dean,” he breathes.

She nods.

“So, you’re not with Dean.” He nods, too, as if checking off an invisible to-do list. “Does that mean that, maybe, you and me …”

“Could be a we?” She finishes for him, steeling herself to meet his eyes. “Is that what you want? I mean, maybe, at this point, I’ve almost made myself _too_ clear, between the whole wandering-around-Manhattan-in-my-uniform thing, and all the kissing, and the breaking up with—”

His eyes are warm, and he’s smirking again, but in a way that makes her feel warm, too. “Hmm, come to think of it, you _have _sort of put yourself out there. Whereas I’ve been a regular closed book. It’s not like I’ve been popping up near you every chance I get, or trailing home after you like a stray dog, when maybe you really did just want to say goodbye.”

It’s a joke, but it’s serious too, and he looks strangely vulnerable as he says it.

She smiles. “So you’re saying you want to be a we, too?”

“Yes,” he says, his voice muffled by her hair. “I’m saying that’s”—_kiss—_“exactly”—_kiss—_“what I want.”

***

The window frame is digging into her back, but it’s hard to care. They’ve shied away from the bed—tacitly agreeing that’d be the very definition of too far, too fast. But they haven’t quite been able to say goodnight, either. He’s skimming his mouth down her neck, and she’s clutching his shirt, pulling him closer, until he’s all there is. He’s new and strange, but also _Jess_, and even though everyone in town seems half-afraid of him, he still makes her feel safe, if only because some part of her has always recognized him as _hers._

“I’m leaving for Washington in two days,” she whispers, between kisses.

“And don’t think I won’t find a way to come tap on your window there, too,” he mutters, hands trailing down her back.

“Yeah?” She stops and stills.

“Yeah.”


	5. Chapter 5

The next morning at Luke’s, he’s the first to serve them coffee. But Lane pages, and Rory just _has _to run off and fill her in —which means that Lorelai’s alone by the time their order’s up and Jess is swinging back around.

“Just say what you want to say, Lorelai.”

“Oh, don’t worry, I will. It’s just that there are so many potential ways to phrase this threat—so many really tried-and-true methods for instilling fear in the enemy, that I’m struggling to come up with something truly original.”

“I won’t hurt her.”

“See that you don’t.”

(Luke looks over as she says it, and for a minute, it’s almost like old times. But then maybe the whole thing feels too much like a landmine, because Luke suddenly turns and heads back into the storeroom.)


	6. Chapter 6

Rory’s been in DC almost three weeks — roughly translated into 6 letters, 9 phone calls, 18 days of missing him, and 18 nights of dreaming about the taste of his mouth and the thud of his heart and the weight of his body against hers—when she comes back to the dorm to find him sitting on a bench, book in hand, like it’s Washington Square Park all over again.

They go for tacos, and wander around a bookstore, and before she even thinks to wonder where he’s staying, she’s pulling Paris aside to beg her to please, pretty please, with a cherry on top, be a good sport about this.

“He better keep his hands to himself,” Paris snarls, before stomping off to find her own dinner.

And as far as Paris is concerned, he does—though his fingers skim the bare flesh of her stomach as he wraps himself around her for the night.

She stays still, warmth spreading outwards from his touch, wetness pooling between her legs—even though, really, he’s barely touching her, barely doing anything at all. Her body feels like a live wire, and it takes a long time for her to fall asleep.

***

She doesn’t want him to go, but the calls and the letters are another kind of closeness. Another way of knowing him.

She traces the shape of his words on the page. Learns the way his voice sounds when he teases, or wheedles, or laughs. When he’s irritated with Luke, or in the midst of discovering a new album, or can’t wait to correct her opinion about a book.

Sometimes, he goes quiet, and she wonders if, maybe, he’s thinking about her, and doesn’t know how to say it.


	7. Chapter 7

By the time her internship’s over, and she’s back home, it feels like her longing for him must be visible to everyone, tattooed all over her skin. Is it the same for him? She can’t always read him, not when they’re around other people like this, but by the time Lorelai heads over to the Inn for the day, and Luke lets him go, he’s almost dragging her to the dock, pressing her into the trunk of the first shaded tree along their path, his mouth urgent and hungry against hers.

“I missed you,” he murmurs against her lips.

“I missed you too,” she almost gasps, hands everywhere, unable to get him close enough, even when his leg’s between hers and she can feel the whole hard length of him pressing against her, moving like he can’t help it.

He starts to pull away, and she whimpers against his mouth.

“Sorry, it’s just—”

“—we can’t do this here.”

She knows that. They both know that.


	8. Chapter 8

That night, she waits for him.

Her mom goes up to bed. She snuggles into her own bed, trying to read — but the lines blur before her eyes, and who is she kidding anyway? Really, she’s just waiting.

When the tap finally comes, she springs up, reaching for him before he even has a chance to make it through the window. She traces his forearm, and the line of his bicep, and all the while, they're moving backwards toward the bed. It’s her that settles them down on it, lying back and pulling him down with her.

He stills, just for a moment, but it’s long enough that her need for him morphs into something so tender it’s almost unbearable, and she has to bury her head in his shoulder to stop the sudden tears from falling. She knows it’s completely irrational, but maybe he feels it too, because his hand trembles as he lifts her chin.

“Rory, I’ve never been—” He shudders, tries again. “I don’t really know to do this. Be close to someone. This is the first time I’ve ever actually _cared, _ever actually _felt — _and I want to do things right. Be good for you, somehow.”

His voice breaks on the word _good_, and her heart thuds painfully against her chest.

“I see the good in you, Jess. I always have.” Little more than a whisper, but she keeps going—feeling, for once, like she actually wants to be out on this limb, just so she can nudge a little closer to him. “And I feel the same … pull, you know? We fit. And I want your words, and your hands, and all of it. All of you.”

“I can’t—” he starts, gazing down at her, tracing the thin strap of her tank top, ghosting his fingers over her neckline.

Then whatever he was going to say gets lost because she can’t help her own sigh that’s almost a moan, and he can’t help it either, and is tugging her strap down, shaping her breasts with his hand, moving his mouth low and lower until it closes over her nipple. He’s slow and reverent, but it doesn’t take long before she’s writhing, pulling him closer, grasping at his hair and his neck and his back. Tearing at his shirt until he pulls away just long enough to toss it to the ground. Then her hands are tracing the planes of his chest and her mouth is sucking at the joint of his shoulder, and he’s panting, moving against her, grinding into her leg, even as his hand reaches down to tug at the waistband of her shorts.

He looks up at her, asking silent permission, and she lets her legs fall open, like the pages of a book. His fingers creep low and lower until they’re buried in her, slick with her wetness, and _my god, Jess, don’t stop, please don’t stop, _because he’s finally filling that horrible aching emptiness that’s with her whenever he’s not_. _His fingers curl inside her, and rub roughly over her clit, and his mouth’s still on her breast, and she feels this strange, unfamiliar heat building inside of her, tensing and coiling, until suddenly she’s teetering over the edge of a cliff, convulsing with pleasure.

“God, you’re beautiful,” he breathes.

When the world comes back into focus, he’s lying on his side beside her, stroking and gentling, trying to still the movements of his own body. Her fingers trail down his chest, and hover over the button of his jeans.

He freezes.

“I always thought I’d be frightened,” she says, almost to herself, as she carefully works his zipper over the stiff bulge in his pants. “But now that I’m here, with you—” she nudges his boxers off his hips as he gasps into her hand—“I’m actually not.”

He’s visibly throbbing, and she tries to be gentle at first, tracing the whole silky length of him, exploring what it feels like to cradle him in her hand. But he groans like he’s almost in pain, and then his hand joins hers, showing her what he likes, what he needs, how to grasp him firmly.

Before long, he’s leaning back, the muscles in his abdomen taut as he reaches for her, muffling the breathy sounds he’s making in her shoulder, as he thrusts frantically against her hand. When he comes, he tries to pull away, but she won’t let him. And she finds she loves the milky feel of him, the intimacy of knowing him like this, when he’s soft and open.

They fall asleep, pressed together, and thank God he’s such a light sleeper, and so stealthy when he needs to be, because those are the only things that save them when Lorelai wakes up and starts moving around upstairs.

***

The next time she sees him, she blushes, and hides her face behind her hair—but he greets her with coffee, and a dog-eared copy of _White Noise, _with his scrawl tucked between its pages.

_ Your matchless grace, your sensuous loveliness, and your beauty strike me dumb._

(See? Hemingway still only has lovely things to say about you—J)

That day, they read by the dock, her head on his lap, his hand in her hair, before heading to her house for takeout and a movie. Her mom’s there, and Jess is suddenly wary, not to mention significantly quieter, but he offers Lorelai an eggroll, and she takes it. And, in the end, it could be worse.


	9. Chapter 9

The school year starts with Lorelai waiting in her room with a list of itemized expenses and a series of questionable jokes about diapers, which is maybe just her way of robbing the moment of its sting. Because this is it: the last first day of high school she’ll ever have. But then Paris launches their “administration” with a speech about the fall of Rome, they leave the coffee & donuts untouched at their “get-to-know-you” meeting, and Francie goes full-on mobster in the bathroom. By the time the school day’s over, all she wants to do is bang her head on Luke’s counter until someone brings her free coffee. But there’s no time for even that, because they’re off to her grandmother’s for dinner. And just when she thought the day couldn’t possibly get any worse, there’s Christopher.

_Mom is all I need, _she yells at him on the way upstairs. And it’s true. But when she runs into Jess at Doose’s, and mumbles something about _my dad _into his shoulder, she’s glad she has him, too.

And when her Harvard application comes, with its impressive letter _H, _and she and her mom take turns freaking out, he’s there, in the background, with that same steady shoulder, telling her that, hey, she can panic as much as she wants, but he thinks she ought to be more forward-thinking, and start worrying about how hard it is to find a decent burger in Boston.

They don’t talk about what he’ll be doing while she’s scouring the city for the best-ever fries. It’s too soon maybe, or maybe she just doesn’t want to think about it. He doesn’t bring it up either. But that night, after she and her mom _just hang _for awhile, they go to the dock, and talk lazily about every other thing while the frogs croak and cry around them.

***

Her applications are all but in, and school’s in full swing for both of them, when he starts talking about getting another job.

“I need money. I want a car,” he says to her one night, as the credits are rolling on _Almost Famous_. “You have to admit, it’d be nice to be able to just go, whenever we want, right? Get outta here for a little while?’”

“Or maybe you just want some _place_ to go,” she teases, as his hand creeps beneath her shirt.

“Couldn’t hurt,” he murmurs, at his most persuasive, lips moving down her neck.

There’s a Walmart just outside of town that’s looking, so maybe that would work. But she’s heard Andrew’s hiring too, and wouldn’t a book store be way better than some horrifying retail giant, with its tentacles everywhere?

“Andrew’ll never hire me,” he argues—turning his face away as he says it, almost like he doesn’t want her to see whatever’s flitting across his face in that moment.

“Doesn’t hurt to ask,” she says.

And she must be persuasive too, because—shock of shocks—he actually does. And Andrew’s not blind, has seen Jess engrossed in enough books, that he’s willing to at least give it at shot. Strictly after-school, of course. But the store closes early on weekends, the pay’s not bad, and Andrew floats him a pretty substantial store discount. So, all in all, it’s the best option.

***

Sometimes, she curls up in a corner of the store to study during his shifts. When the store’s not busy, they’re basically extended reading vacations for him too—though she never sees him do anything for school. She wants to ask about it, maybe try to talk again about what he wants to do after graduation. But she isn’t sure how to word it, and thinks that she might need to work her way up to it somehow. So it doesn’t just sound like another round of _here come the pom-poms._


	10. Chapter 10

She’s not sure when she starts to worry. To let little tendrils of unease take root in her mind.

Maybe when Lane dyes her hair? They talk about first love, and Lane not-so-subtly asks about Dean, how he’s been since the breakup. And Rory realizes that she actually has no idea, that she almost never thinks about him now. He brought over some of her things while she was still in DC, and she thinks that she maybe saw him head across the green with Lindsey Lister the other day. But otherwise, nothing. And maybe it’s sad and wrong of her not to be more broken up over the whole thing, especially considering how close they were, how much he meant to her before.

“He was your first love,” Lane says to her, like she’s testing the waters. Fishing for details.

And suddenly Rory realizes that even though she and Jess have barely grazed this subject, what she feels for him is completely different than anything she ever felt for Dean.

It’s new. But it’s also strong, and deep, and overwhelming. And scary—so much scarier—for that.

Because what if she really starts to need him?

***

It’s the 23rd hour of the dance marathon when things finally come to a head. They’re not dancing, but Jess (through some mysterious black magic of his own) actually roped Luke into being Lorelai’s partner, and neither of them wanted to miss out on that particular Kodak moment. But Rory’s sort of fading by now, desperate for some calamity to befall Luke and Lorelai so that Kirk can just do his victory lap already, and they’re leaning against the wall on the back bench of the bleakers, heads together, books forgotten on their laps. She feels the quiet settling between them, and looks down at his long, tapered fingers, still holding his place, even as his other arm settles around her.

“I’m scared,” she whispers.

He stills and looks at her, really looks at her, like there’s no one else there. Or like he sees her in a way no one else can.

She tries to go on, explain how frightening it is to feel this much, this fast, or even think about needing. But it’s like he already knows.

“I’m scared too,” he says, voice soft and low and _his_. “But this feels right to me, like nothing else, so I figure I’ve got to risk it.”

“We just have to breathe through it?”

He nods. And the decision locks into place between them.


End file.
